Derevolution
by Rigato Caravel
Summary: Another has accessed the Grid and begun his own creations. It seems determined to shove Sam Flynn completely out of the picture. But in a world meant to be shared by all, will Sam fight for control or surrender his reign? Sam Flynn/Edward Dillinger
1. Anomalies in the System

NOTE: This story will be secondary to A Personal Paradox and A Blade to the Throat, unless interest begs me to continue at a faster rate.

The Grid.

A digital frontier.

A frontier that had no limit in space or time, something that simply went on forever until code dissipated out and was left with black nothingness.

Once ruled over by a god of sorts and a protector both…now owned by a young man, Sam Flynn, who didn't look like a leader at all at the moment.

He was leaned forward, elbows on his knees, gazing at the digital statue the programs had made of his father. He had rejected any sort of finery, preferring the suit he'd worn the first time he'd entered the grid. It was free-moving, slick, and didn't make him feel like some sort of pompous emperor. He wanted to make his…rule a bit more casual than that of Clu.

"Wish you were here, Dad." He muttered softly, looking up at the statue's face. The creation was surrounded at its base by a ring of bio-digital water, an odd sort of fountain that felt nothing like the water back home. More like oil, thicker that slid off the skin instead of absorbing into it. "I haven't done much with the place…not like you can hire a decorator around here." He chuckled to himself.

Sam ran his hand behind his neck, feeling the edge of the suit clasped gently to his skin. The world here seemed so clean, so orderly. Every building was graceful and purposeful, the people inside all knowing what to do and how to do it. Every program was in its place, bustling around him. This was a world that never slept. This had become more of an escape over the weeks, a chance to explore something he never got to when helping his father with Clu.

The luster of the world never seemed to quit. Each day Sam was discovering something new, things he could tinker with and change. 'Knocking on the sky' as his father used to call it. Sam sighed and closed his eyes, then back up at his father's face. He'd taken over the company, fired the CEO and Ed Dillinger. He'd finally become the man Alan wanted him to be.

Now it was too much strain, he wanted to be here, not stuck in some board room.

Here was the programmer's paradise.

"Maybe I'm more like you than I think." He muttered at the statue. "See you Dad."

Sam walked back to the light cycle, one of the first creations his father had programmed. He'd modified it a bit. Running and having the bike materialize under you was convenient for running away from something, but sometimes he liked the feeling of putting a kickstand down. In the light cycle's case, it creating a kickstand out of that solid light from a vent in its side. He straddled the bike and put his feet on the rests, letting the engine carry him out into the glassy black streets. Strips of light and reflections were the only things that hinted at buildings. It was late.

The Grid may never sleep, but the activity slowed to give the computer time to rest, to log the day.

He had to get back to the portal. He was wary of letting it close on him, and these occasional visits made Alan nervous. The old man was always convinced he would one day be trapped. Sam smirked under his helmet, chuckling. Good old Alan…he was more of a father to him than his own, in many ways.

The bike glided easily through the streets, lulling Sam into a sense of calm. It wasn't the adrenaline and roaring engine of his Ducati. The light cycle was more elegant, refined, like watching espresso flow from a machine. Programs easily avoided their master's speed, able to detect his unique signature now that he'd integrated it into the Grid itself.

His thoughts turned to Quorra. She didn't like to come to the Grid with him…she was too enthralled in their world. At first he'd had to gently show her their ways. But she'd learnt so quickly, picked it up so fast that now she was relatively normal. A piece of the bio-digital there in the real world…and no one knew it except for himself.

Lost in his thoughts Sam turned a corner…and everything exploded.

Something slammed hard into his left side, and the light cycle slid out from underneath him. It clattered along the silky street and skidded to a stop some feet away from him. Sam felt his body smack the pavement, like a bug hitting a windshield. Whatever had struck him stumbled over him with four limbs, claws clicking on the street. Sam groaned and tried to get to his feet.

The creature struck him again, knocking him flat. This time jaws clamped around his leg, sending pain straight up his calf. "The hell?" Sam twisted his body and fear sank deep into his heart. A black, shimmering panther stood there, mimicking the growling purr Rinzler had used for intimidation. Its eyes were red, a colour of light he'd not seen since the days of Clu.

It seemed to be jointed, smoothly, as if its body had been cut into thick slices, separated by a few inches, and held in a jointed fashion. The head was smooth, no ears, no nose…just lips, teeth, and glowing red eyes. It lashed a long tail, and then began to drag him backward. Away from the light cycle and promises of escape.

"Get off of me!" Sam snarled, lifting his other leg and kicking the cat in the face. He'd never seen any four legged creature here! Nothing that even hinted at wildlife remained here…just barren rocks and programs masquerading in human form. A few strikes from his boot crushed part of the cat's face and forced it to let go, shaking its half-resolutioned head.

Sam struggled to his feet, prepared to face the panther with nothing but his bare hands if need be. The cat collected itself, lowered, and sprang at him.

"Shit!" Sam slid to one side, then turned and ran. This thing was dangerous…he felt his leg bruising and swelling, but the panther had clearly not meant to kill him. If it had it would have gone for his neck…he supposed. How the hell did digital cats think? The only thing that mattered was, this program was clearly hostile.

Not only that, the guards were mysteriously absent. Had the cat gotten them? He'd like to think his programming skills weren't THAT weak.

"Just my luck not to have a can of fucking tuna…" he growled breathlessly, hearing the bounding leaps of the cat behind him. He was lucky the cat was half blind, but not it was angry with him. He heard a loud, angry, synthesized roar behind him. He was headed toward the more populated part of the city now, toward the heart. "Get out of the way!" he shouted at passersby, preferring to run straight through rather than crash into people. He turned his head and saw the cat roughly shoulder someone to the ground, hissing. Sam saw an opportunity.

A staff, clutched in the hand of a more elegant program just ahead of him, was his last chance. He seized it from the man's hand and turned around. Not a split second too late the panther caught itself on the end of the black staff, and shattered into glass. Sam stared at the dissipating mess slowly, breathing hard. "Thanks." He muttered at the astonished program, handing him back his staff.

The program nodded wordlessly to him and the people began moving again, just as if nothing had happened. Sam could do little but look at it.

Someone had wanted him.

Someone using the same red colors as Clu's old banner.

What the hell was going on?

The End of the Line Club was the place to go for information. He'd known that for a few cycles now. It had been refurbished after Clu had blown it to pieces, but it retained its relaxed atmosphere of replication, drink and shady deals. Sam headed back through the streets to his light cycle, picking up the machine with a grunt. His leg was still throbbing, and dark flecks of liquid were forming on the glassy street. He gently peeled back the covering on his calf and saw a deep, dark blue bruise forming on the skin. Two large, U shaped cuts were on either side of his calf muscle. Instead of teeth, the cat had two strips of razor sharp steel in its mouth. Sam sighed and gingerly rolled the bio-mechanical cloth back over his leg.

He'd live.

He swung his good leg over the bike and revved the engine, turning it in the direction of the club.


	2. The Recycle Bin

The End of Line Club was full of music and programs as usual. It had everything from odd-looking, half-resolutioned viruses to normal programs looking to escape basic function. Sam waded through the crowd to the bartender, an old outmoded looking thing that had been around since the first cycles. "What will it be?" it asked, calmly rubbing down the spotless bar.

"I need to know who the new owner is. I need to speak with him…see if he's as reliable as Zuse was." Sam said. The bartender gave him an odd look, then glanced beyond him.

"Sam Flynn!"

Sam straightened up and turned around at the sound of his name, his eyes widening. Zuse stood before him, cockily leaning over on his pyrex cane, his chin resting on the neck of it casually. "So the prodigal returns to grace us all with his well-meaning presence. You certainly don't know to make much of an entrance of it." He looked up to the Djs in their booth, gesturing with a hand and straightening up. The music took a turn, pulsing like heartbeats through the room. Electrifying the programs to dance and sway with it. "Drinks all around!" he proclaimed much to the cheers of the programs around Sam.

"Come into my office Sam. We have so much to catch up on." Zuse straightened up and flicked the end of his cane up to the office, dancing up the stairs with a light gait. Sam shifted through the dancing programs and followed, confused. He could have sworn he'd been told that Zuse was murdered by Clu. His programming had been wiped from the system…he was an iso, not something he could easily recover even with his programming skills.

"How are you alive? Everyone told me you were dead." Sam said suspiciously as Zuse pushed a champagne flute into his hand.

"Well that's the thing about the Grid. Nothing's ever fully erased…it just took a bit of a push to pluck me from the recycle bin." Zuse smirked. "Since you never bothered, someone else did." He poured himself a glass and leaned his cane up against the bar, taking a sip. He shifted his skinny form back against the slick glass of his personal bar.

"Pluck you out of the…Zuse, your programming is beyond even me. You're as complex as Quorra. You're an iso, how could you simply be recovered like that?" Sam demanded, setting his drink down on the bar.

Zuse met his eyes, cocking his head slightly. "Someone a bit more skilled than you, Sammy." He smiled and lightly touched Sam's nose with his finger. "Another Queen's entered the chess board."

"You mean another user. How?" Sam growled. "I'm the only one with that beam thing that my father left."

"And you take such good care of it. What with the dust, the…questionable security. I'm sure that whole arcade is locked down just. Like. A. Fortress." He poked Sam's chest with his finger, emphasizing each word. Sam's face paled. "Ah, the boy learns." Zuse slid to the side and away from him.

"Someone accessed the same terminal? How could they even use it?" Sam growled.

"Oh well if they know your last name, and the basics of how to get in…your father programmed it to be accessible by anyone. The Grid was meant to be shared. Such a dreamer, your father." Zuse said in amusement, getting up close to Sam. He slid his hand around to Sam's cheek. "You're getting lines." He withdrew. "Go on. Enjoy a girl. Enjoy a boy." He took up his cane and headed to the C shaped couch, plopping down lightly.

"Zuse. This is serious. I was attacked today…some sort of cat. Nothing me or my father programmed, this was something straight out of the blue."

"There aren't any animals here. Except for the ones out there maybe." Zuse flicked a glance at the dancers.

"It was…I don't know. Looked mechanical. I didn't create it, and the thing tried to murder me."

"Well it must have been the other user then. He's a bit more creative." Zuse said, feigning ignorance.

"He's the one who…brought you back." Sam said, scowling. "He's the one who put you back in control of the club! How the hell was he able to do it? How? I know you know. He obviously told you otherwise you'd not know what was outside the Grid."

"Just observations I retained." Zuse was obviously warming to the compliments.

"Where is he?" Sam pressed, walking over to the couch and standing before the iso. "Look there are a lot worse things out there than me. This guy's just going to use you and toss you back in the trash the minute there's a problem."

"Isn't that what you're going to do?" Zuse pointed out.

"No." Sam said coldly. "I'm not Clu. I never will be. Why did he bring you back?"

"Then take it from me, Sam Flynn. You're better off leaving that one alone." Zuse said calmly. "Now, three reasons people come here. Dancing, drinking, fucking. Either do one of those three or I think we're done here." He rose from the couch and downed the rest of his champagne, giving Sam a knowing smirk. "Unless you want door number three."

Sam ran his fingers through his hair. "I need your help finding this guy. I'm not leaving until I do."

"Is that a yes?" Zuse drew closer.

Sam put his hand on the iso's chest. "No. I have Quorra…I'm in love with her. Besides, I'm not into programs." He grumbled.

"Contradicting statement. Would have been a thrill to see what Users are like. I've sampled everything else in this dry little terminal." Zuse said flippantly. "You'll find your other User across the Grid, in the Outlands. Keep going in a straight line, and you'll find him about somewhere between far away and impossible. Fly away Sam Flynn. I believe you know where the door is."

Sam scowled at Zuse. He'd barely gotten any information at all squeezed from the man. But if Zuse didn't want to open up, then he wouldn't. It was just his programming. If Sam wanted to change it then he would have to spend hours at a terminal figuring out how to modify the isos…which could take from years to the rest of his life knowing their complexity. Zuse was Zuse, it would always be that way.

Unless the iso got himself killed again.

He walked through the crowd to the elevator, leaning against the side of the machine and hitting the button to go down. It was a bit of a trip; his father had originally built the bar to be above the skyline of the Grid. It was beautiful, just took a while to get to. Sam used the time to think, about Zuse, about the isos, about this new User. If Zuse was correct and this person's programming skills were far beyond his own, then he would be heading into a war zone.

The portal was closing behind him, he had to get back to it. First of all to lock down the terminal stationed at Flynn's Arcade, perhaps move it to his own home to keep an eye on it. It had been foolish leaving it in such a dangerous area, what had he been thinking? His father had left it there because no other person could have figured out the location. He had been coming here a lot lately and hadn't bothered to cover his tracks. If someone was really curious as to his whereabouts ,they could find him. Once they had access to the Grid, it was obvious now a person could go wild with his imagination.

Sam hit the bottom and got back onto his light cycle, letting the small canopy close over him. He leaned over the white and black machine, sighing softly and turning it to head toward the portal. He would have to get outside, see what was going on. Maybe try and track the terminal's usage from the ENCOM computers.

He looked down at the microchip dangling on his throat. That was the Grid, there in that small chip. He could try a system restore with it, but he didn't know what would happen to the Grid itself. Restoring it using this chip would restore it to the point just after Clu's reign. Where he had to convince the programs to trust him on a public scale…but it would also mean that this new user's creations would be wiped completely from the board.

Sam would have to ask Quorra. She had grown up on the Grid, in the Outlands. She would know exactly what he needed to do and how to do it. In the meantime, it was time to delve in to the ENCOM systems to find out who had accessed the terminal located at his father's arcade. With ENCOM's powerful servers, he had begun to believe that anything was possible. Much as he hated to admit it, they had done well in updating a few things.

The portal would take a few hours to get to. He had to move fast.

Quorra sat in one of Sam's armchairs, a cup of coffee between her fingers. She looked down into the dark liquid, sighing. Sam should be home soon. He was off in the Grid again, visiting the site of his father's statue. She missed her mentor…he had been such a kind man to her. Taking her in when the Purge began, protecting her. Teaching her things about the world outside, but now that she was there it was entirely different from the books.

The ships were made out of steel, the city was nothing grandiose or beautiful, it was grimy. Similar to the novel Oliver Twist, though she'd discovered this wasn't London at all. Getting used to imperfection was a fascinating and arduous process. Things like coffee were small saving graces, and she enjoyed Sam's dog. The little boston terrier had warmed to her considerably since she'd been here.

Alan, who she understood was a friend of Flynn Sr., pestered her relentlessly about the Grid and the Outlands, programs and users, even the isos. It was no secret he wanted to go into the Grid again to see how it progressed. He was even more fascinated by the fact she was here, outside of the Grid. That something digital had become flesh. He was a well-meaning creature, so she tolerated him. Sam apparently held him as close as his own father.

She sipped her coffee, looking up at the clock. It was still early in the night, but Sam had been gone all day. She couldn't help but worry about him.

Three in the morning came and went.

Where was he? He'd promised to come back before midnight! She frowned in worry and picked up the motorcycle keys. She'd go to the arcade, see if he'd fallen asleep in the office again. The thought that something else had occurred didn't even cross her mind.


	3. Forceful Code Lines

Sam looked up and down into the dark, dark abyss that once housed the portal. The stream of light was gone. Gone. He felt his heart sink down into his stomach. He was stuck in the Grid, but with three hours and fifteen minutes to spare by his own watch, what had made the portal shut down? That was one thing he had never dared to touch, the portal. Messing with it too much could shut off the Grid completely from the real world…or seal him in. But it looked like he would have to, to see who had tracked muddy footprints all over his father's pristine programming. He bit his lip and walked back down the runway….until a low growl made him freeze.

A black cat, the size of his light cycle, slid out onto the walkway with all the grace of a dancer. "Oh Christ, I thought I got rid of you." Sam groaned, backing up slowly as the cat advanced. There were no roads here, no staff to grab from a program. Nowhere to run. The man who had closed the portal, the other User, must have known that he would go to the portal, and thus had made the perfect little rabbit trap for him. He couldn't even get to his light cycle from here. He swore and looked around him. There was nothing except the small ridges on either side of the walkway. The cat knew it had him cornered, there was a different body language this time. Its head was high on its shoulders, and the purr sounded….arrogant.

Sam backed up and felt his heel hit the edge. Beyond that was abyss and the shut down portal. The cat was barely six feet from him before he felt air at his back. He felt a low, loud hum, then the light struck his spine. He didn't question it. He stepped backward and into oblivion.

When he came to, he was standing before the terminal in the arcade. Dusty as ever, it caked his palms. So much different than the glassy world of the Grid. "Jesus." He muttered under his breath, running his fingers through his hair and streaking it with dust and sweat. That hadn't been a mistake. The other User was toying with him. Mocking him. Opening and shutting the portal to remind Sam that he was no idle threat, he was something to be feared.

"Whoever the fuck this guy is…." Sam growled. Anger ran through his veins. Why now? Why? He had gotten the world to be at peace, at last, preparing it to be open to the public and now this? But some little voice in the back of his mind said that if he ever let the Grid go public, then he would have to deal with problems like this. There was always someone smarter than he.

The cat paused at the beam of light, confused. It growled softly when a hand rested on its forehead. "Good. He'll be back in before the night is over." The man standing next to the creature chuckled softly. "Let's go have a visit to Zuse….see what else we can do about Sam Flynn and his little empire of peace." He snapped his fingers and the cat moved with him, turning as one creature down to the end of the platform. "Light cycle….how primitive." The User sneered, running his fingers down the seat of the light cycle.

His hand went back to the cat, running his index finger down its forehead. This time the gesture was more meaningful. The cat howled and dropped with a loud clank to its stomach. It's legs stretched out and the joints shifted noisily, like obsidian grinding on itself. The head stretched out, the neck bulged with reprogrammed muscle, it became more lanky. When the cat rose, it was no longer that. The horse shook its reformed head and shifted awkwardly. The User mounted the horse fluidly, and set off in the direction of the city. Sam Flynn's little creations on the current Grid were quite cute, more replicas of his father's work than anything. But out in the Outlands he was forming his own empire against Sam's. It was a chess game that he would win, now that the other queen was going to be hopping back and forth over a small portal virus.

The horse galloped with an unearthly smoothness. There was no lope to the gait. The man on the creature's back stayed as still as someone on a bike. No jarring movements. Just the flurry of legs underneath the figure, and the mechanical whuffs of the creature. The User barely noticed when the programs in the streets of the Grid stared at him. He was not here for their amusement, he was here for Zuse. The boy would have seen the iso by now, and though Zuse was secretive he was a useful piece of biodigital software. Too useful to let Clu throw away.

He paused at the elevator at the base of the End of the Line club. He would have to leave the Grid soon, but only once he'd found out what Zuse knew about the inner workings of the Grid. Unlike Sam, he knew how to handle the capricious iso. He dismounted the horse and let the software twist itself back into the form of a cat. It hobbled for a moment as it regained its primary functions and rebooted, then slid by the User's side as the man settled into the elevator.

"He'll have that portal moved. But I intend on using my own backdoor…Flynn didn't honestly think that ENCOM didn't copy his every movement, every keystroke? What a fool." The User mused to himself, shaking his head. The cat said nothing, rumbling its purr with every inhale and exhale. The hum of the elevator around them was….soothing. For all the elder Flynn's flaws, he knew how to program beautifully and smoothly. He couldn't say as much for Sam, who had the same grace but was still learning. He ran a finger over the banisters ringing the elevator's walls. There was a slight hitch in the movement. Clumsy. He pressed down firmly on the spot that hitched, dragging his thumb slowly and forcefully down the banister. The spot hissed and crackled under his thumb, the code resisting his attempts to smooth out the bad decimal point someone had left somewhere. But the error was so glaring, he needed to fix it. He bared his teeth and ground his thumb harder on the spot, feeling it give and become as smooth as glass. He slid his hand across. The hitch was gone. Good.

The doors opened and noise blasted his eardrums. Zuse was quite obviously celebrating his return in style. But oddly, was not present. The User sighed and looked down at the cat. The panther looked toward the plexiglass office of the partygoers' patron. It was clouded with soft blue light, compared to the seizure-inducing, throbbing cobalt of the rest of the club. The User smirked and made toward it, his hand on the panther. He could sense the programming Zuse was shifting around. All so innocent, what the iso was doing. Nothing that could ever harm anything, but it made his own life more convenient.

The User lifted his palm and the door melted away at his will. The panther wisely guarded the door as the glass resolutioned back in behind him, chinking itself back together pixel by glassy pixel.

The User marched through the office, past the C-shaped white couches and the luxurious bar, following his ears. He was hearing soft, mewling cries of pleasure. Another plexiglass door crumbled under his fingers, and he saw the white form of Zuse sprawled out on the bed, the heaving back of a program between his legs, a woman by his side. "Hedonist." The User growled, barely giving the programs time to react. He seized the man by the back of the neck and the program shrieked, shattering in the User's fist. The girl fled, stumbling out of the door with as much grace as she could manage. The User could sense her panic.

Zuse sighed and threw one of the diaphanous black sheets over his thighs. "Edward Dillinger. Always a lovely surprise." He rolled his eyes, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Tell me, why is it only Flynn seems to know how a door operates, hm?"

"Did you do as I asked you?"

Zuse glared irritably at the black and red-orange figure at the foot of his bed. He sat up and rearranged his hair into some form of normality, tying one of the sheets around his waist and standing up. "Yes. He'll have a manhunt on before the cycle's out." He said. He uncorked a glass bottle from a nightstand and poured himself a flute of the mysterious, blue liquid his club served. "Now why did you come all the way up here to confirm what you already knew, spoiling my fun? I had fun programming him." He said, picking up a glass shard of his lover. The piece fell away into dust in his palm.

"Because I have another task for you."

"Please." Zuse rested his back against the nightstand and sipped the alcohol. "What more could you want? You've already got programs of your own manufacturing those little horrors out in the Outlands."

"I need you to find the remains of the other isos in the system. Flynn brought them here, Clu killed them. But, like you, I could repair them." Dillinger said, clasping his hands quietly in front of him.

"My dear boy, you fished me out of a recycle bin, among thousands of lines of tangled code." Zuse said incredulously. "What makes you think you can reach down there and resurrect biodigital code? It's not been done, even by Flynn. The bio part renders that a bit difficult, I think. Their code is so degraded I think you'd be bringing back a bunch of slack-jawed idiots."

"Precisely." Edward said. Zuse could hear the sneer.

"I'm up for a bunch of idiots as much as anyone else, but usually only when they're buying my liquor and fucking on my couches." Zuse said.

"Locate where Clu put them. You have nothing else to do than reprogram subroutines to give you blowjobs, I think you could find time for a little soul searching. Unless you want me to put you back where I found you." Edward growled threateningly.

Zuse glared. But he knew Dillinger was right. Flynn had been a calm beneficiary, his son Sam seemed pretty content to ignore Zuse's philandering as long as he didn't bother any programs that were seriously needed by the system. Dillinger was under the impression Zuse was his personal slave.

"If you think you can get me to go down there and start sorting through the garbage just because you've got your finger on the delete key….that's where you're right." Zuse said, giving Dillinger a thin-lipped smile. "If you'll excuse me….I've got quite the tension headache going on from your little mess and I need some program out there with some forceful code lines to put me back in shape."

Dillinger nodded. "Keep it under control. And Zuse?" he said as he turned to leave. The iso was quite obviously trying to restrain a temper. "Sam's going to come back here. When he does, I want you to get close to him. Seduce him. Then…use this on him." He tossed a tiny object toward Zuse. The iso caught it without effort, not bothering to look at what his palm had captured.

"Toodle pip then." Zuse said icily, watching his door crumble at Dillinger's passing, then resolution itself back in place. He sighed and sat down on his bed, opening his palm to look at what Dillinger had passed him. A small, triangular black object with a point sharper than any blade that had crossed Zuse's chin. He turned it over in his fingers, and swore slightly when he felt it graze nastily against his flesh. He watched milky white blood pool at his fingertip, and sucked on the wound. The blade hummed slightly in his hands, and Zuse felt something course through his veins from the wound. His programming was enough to take care of it, but he still felt sinking in the pit of his stomach. "Poison." He whispered softly.


	4. A Little Push

Sam took a deep breath and looked down at the terminal in front of him. Someone had cleaned his father's old computer. Zuse had been right. What a fool he had been to think that the arcade was some impenetrable fortress. He hadn't even bothered to put a lock on the steam tunnels leading to the portal terminal. He'd thought that no one would notice that tiny little semi-circular track that signified that the Tron arcade machine moved. Apparently he'd thought wrong.

Sam ran his fingers over the smooth, clean terminal. Someone had spent the time to wipe it completely clean. A small slap in his face, displaying just how long the intruder had been here. But his eyes noticed something. Something tiny. The screws on the side of one of the panels weren't rotated correctly. He had used this terminal over thirty times since his father's death, and for some reason he always caught a certain screw in his vision that was rotated to one o'clock. This time, it was more toward seven.

"Shit." He breathed, running his fingers over the screw. He checked the others. Some were tight, others were sticking out slightly, the panels loose, like they'd been twisted in a hurry. "Someone took it apart." He whispered. How long was he in the Grid? Quorra had told him time was subjective in the Grid. Someone could speed up or slow down cycles, make time as fast as a blink or as slow as a hundred years to a day. It was why they had no formal measurement of time, because time did not exist in the Grid. There were no seconds when there was no concrete definition of what a second could be.

So how long was that cat approaching him? How long had it taken the light train to get there? How long, how long, how long.

"God fucking dammit!" Sam swore, seizing an old screwdriver and irritably fastening the loose screws until the metal squeaked in protest.

"…Sam?"

Sam turned around to see Quorra looking at him, concerned. "…You didn't come home. I got worried. What happened?" she asked, approaching him and touching her fingers to his cheek. Sam put his hand against hers, sighing and leaning into her palm. Quorra always felt like Zuse's touches, cool and mechanical but never warm.

"Someone's invaded the Grid. He resurrected Zuse and he….his pet…attacked me." Sam said quietly, sitting down at the computer chair and rolling up his pant leg. The cat's bite had turned a nasty purple black colour, and the half-circle where the metal had clamped down was swollen up.

"What the…" Quorra knelt and touched the bruises. Sam hissed and jerked his leg out of the way. "..sorry!" she apologized and gently reached out toward his leg. "I've never seen a wound like that, even in the Grid."

"It's not important." Sam growled, rolling his pant leg down. "Someone took apart the portal terminal and put it back together. All in the time I was driving toward the portal."

Quorra frowned. "If he had time to make a completely new program from scratch, slow down the cycle, resurrect Zuse, and hunt you…he's been on the Grid a lot longer than the few hours it took for you to drive to the portal." She said.

Sam realized she was right. Even for him it had taken weeks just to learn how to create and destroy within the Grid. "How can Zuse be alive?" Quorra frowned. "Your father could repair me but he always warned me never to get killed. He tried to help the isos after they were derezzed, but the programming degraded too quickly. It rotted, just like things do here. To bring him back, he would have had to appear on the Grid less than a day after Zuse was killed by Clu." Quorra stood and looked at the terminal. "Can you get back in?"

"I'm not sure. He was toying with me. He sent that animal after me, then he opened the Grid right when it could have killed me. He was messing with me Quorra….I need to fight back." Sam said. "Listen, I need you to guard the portal. I need to go see Alan. He'll know what's going on." He grabbed his coat from its usual spot on an old countertop.

Quorra frowned. "I can try and get in, do something-"

"No. I don't want you in there with that fucking cat. I barely got away from it. If he knows what you are, he'll either kill you or…. I don't know. But it won't be good." Sam said. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Please, do this for me. Guard the terminal."

The iso sighed and nodded, but she clearly wasn't happy about it. Sam tried to smile reassuringly at her. He would fix this, he had to fix this.

He ran out of the arcade and swung his leg over the back of his bike. It was a respectable thing, a Kawasaki, but not nearly the beauty or grace of his father's light cycle. He turned on the engine and swung out into the street, gunning the engine. He knew where Alan would be, working late as usual. He headed toward the skyscraper, sighing, his mind buzzing with questions.

It was the longest elevator ride he'd ever taken, heading up to the top, to Alan's office. Even though he had taken over the position of CEO at ENCOM, Alan had promised to stay on as his CFO, and thus was in the office next to his own. Sam's office was empty most of the time, hell, the maintenance crew probably knew his office better than Sam did. Sam headed down the hallway to the corner office of Alan Bradley. He smiled when he saw the older man's face reflected in the light of the computer screen. He rapped his knuckles on the open doorway. "Knock, knock." He said softly.

Alan looked up. "Sam?" he smirked and shook his head. "You've not been in the office for months. You know, Dillinger hasn't stopped appealing for your resignation. If you don't start showing up here, the board is going to start seeing things his way." He said sharply.

"Thanks, dad." Sam said wryly. "Listen….Alan…" he looked down at his feet. "…I've got a problem."

"Of course you do. You're on the Fortune 500 list and you don't even bother to toss the press a word. You missed a press conference this afternoon." Alan said irritably, shutting off his terminal and pulling his glasses off his face. He ran his fingers over his eyes.

"No, that's not what I mean Alan. It's…the Grid." Sam said, and he saw from the change in his old friend that he had immediately gotten Alan's attention.

"Jesus Christ Sam…" Alan hissed, getting up from his desk and herding Sam into his office. He shut the door and locked it. "What?"

"…There's someone in the Grid. You know how Clu killed the only other iso other than Quorra?" Sam said quietly.

Alan nodded. "Zuse. The owner of the club. Your father and I found him as a trader among the isos. We always thought he'd get himself killed one way or another." He said, drawing the shades. "What about him?"

"He's alive. This other User…he resurrected him. He also sent some sort of program after me. Nearly tore my leg off." Sam said, running his fingers through his hair.

He saw Alan's face pale. Sam knew he hadn't exactly been keeping the old man in the loop. He'd explained everything when he'd come back the first time, but since then Alan had preferred being a desk jockey to running around the wilds of the Grid. Someone had to keep the company from sinking itself. "Well how the hell did he get in? The only portal is in the arcade and I gave you the key almost a year ago." Alan demanded.

Sam felt his throat constrict. "I….uh.." he scrambled for an excuse, but there wasn't one. He'd fucked up.

Alan's face darkened. "I trusted you. That was your father's greatest creation, his life's work. If people knew about it he would go down in the history books as the greatest programmer, the greatest inventor of the age. Putting the biological into the digital. And you just…." He threw up his hands. "Sam. I've watched you grow up. I've cleaned up your messes with the company, I really have and I'm not going to fix your messes with the Grid too. You have to take responsibility sooner or later, god dammit, and I thought you would when I gave you the key to the arcade. This is your problem. You find a solution." he said angrily.

"I really need your help here Alan! You helped my Dad program it, I'm still learning the-"

"All you've done in the Grid is drink with Zuse and hang around moping." Alan said coldly. "You had plenty of time to learn the ropes. If you'd spent time learning from Zuse instead of drinking you might have done more security. There were no guards after Clu, I checked myself. You have let the Grid run wild and it's no one's fault but your own."

Sam felt completely and utterly silenced. Alan was right. He hadn't made any effort to learn the Grid's programming, and apparently this other User had. He'd always skated through life, he knew the programming of the real world like nothing else. He could manually debug thousands of lines of code, he could pull a virus prank on an international company meeting, but his father had proved that the Grid was a lot different than just logging in.

"Sam. Listen to me." Alan said, a bit more gently. "If you truly want to take over this company…then prove it to me with the Grid. You have to grow up sometime. You can't just run around with Quorra, sleep in a shipping crate no matter how nice it is, feed your dog takeout…you're better than that. But you're a lot like your father." he sighed. "Go fix your mistake."

Sam nodded quietly, turning to leave.

"Sam?"

He looked back at Alan's tone.

"Find Tron."

Zuse shivered as he let the train take him over the ocean. That black, endless sea that had consumed Tron and the bodies of the isos after Clu had simply dumped them in. Zuse had left the management of the club go for the day, and shut it down. The programs could use with a little sobering up anyway, and Zuse didn't want to be worrying about someone breaking into his personal rooms.

He stood up when they approached the portal. Dillinger had given him very specific instructions. Reach where the portal hit the ocean…and go downward from there. Down past the ocean into the depths of programming. To the halls of the dead.

Programs were never fully eliminated, they could always be recovered. It was a security that the elder Flynn had put in to prevent himself from doing something silly. It had saved Zuse, but he was still frightened as to what he would find down there. He had no memory of his time there, he had woken up in his bed with Dillinger staring down at him.

He stepped off the train, cane in hand, and looked down to see the panther. "I hope you can swim….or fly." Zuse said doubtfully. The program rumbled a snarl at him. Clearly, it shared its masters opinion of the club owner. "Well don't get pissy at me. I don't want to be here any more than you do."

The cat sniffed at him and walked down the narrow pathway, suspended above the ocean. Here was a programming gray area. A hole in the solidarity of the Grid where programs could not go. But Zuse was more than a simple program. He just needed to get down there. He looked down at the edge of the platform, standing next to the panther. "What the hell does he want me to do….jump?" Zuse mused.

He didn't get time to answer the question, the cat did it for him. He felt the creature slam into the back of his knees with its powerful shoulders, and his legs buckled. Then he was falling down into nothingness, the mist rushing up to meet him.


	5. The White of Resurrection

Find Tron.

Like it was such a simple command. Sam had been in what could be loosely termed his home for hours, listening to his boston terrier noisily chew up a philly cheese steak sandwhich. Alan was right, he really should start feeding him dog food. He paced noisily on the floor of the stacked shipping crates, mulling over his options. He could lock down the Grid and prevent any more logins, but Clu had also attempted to do the same thing and the programs might react poorly. He'd promised them he'd rule them fairly, not with an iron fist as Clu had. He could raise up an army of his own, but doing so might provoke attack itself, and in turn make the programs nervous that he was turning into Clu. He could find this stranger somewhere in the Grid, somewhere beyond far away and impossible like Zuse had told him, but would that mean his own death? He'd played enough online games to know that while some Users might be content to chat with him and work out terms, others would rather put a spike through his skull and rule the Grid themselves.

They could, now that they might have a working replica of the Portal somewhere. "Fuck!" Sam groaned, sinking down into his leather couch and watching his dog stumble over to give his calf an affectionate lick. "What the hell am I going to do?" he moaned through his fingers, hiding his face from the world. He felt like he could not go forward nor go back. He could not keep ignoring his company while battling this other User.

He looked down at the terrier, who was snorting through a brachiocephalic nose and wiggling his little stump of a tail. He couldn't keep ignoring his girlfriend or neglect his home. He let a hand down to rub between the terrier's ears. "Hey." He said softly. "I'm so sorry Marv…I don't even remember the last time I took you for a walk."

"I've been taking him for walks. It helps me to know the city."

He looked behind him to see Quorra walk in, smiling gently. "What did Alan say?" she asked, setting down a bag. Sam knew where she'd been. Quorra spent endless hours in the libraries around the city, absorbing as much information as possible. In his father's home in the Grid, there had been dozens of books. When he had shown her the public library, with its thousand upon thousand of tomes…and learning there were more of these wondrous buildings had taken her breath away. She'd taken it upon herself personally to learn, and who was he to deny her?

Sam ran his hand over his hair. "He said I had to find Tron." He said quietly. Quorra looked at him, puzzled, and walked over to stand in front of him.

"Tron is dead." She said quietly. "He derezzed falling into the Sea of Simulation."

Sam nodded. "I know…Alan knew…but why would he say that? He's angry with me, he claims I'm on my own with the Grid problems." He said softly. Quorra knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers, her large eyes looking into his own. He unconsciously rubbed his thumb across her cold, digital hands.

"You're not on your own." She told him, sternly. "You have me."

Sam squeezed her hands. "Zuse told me to find the other User. Out in the Outlands, beyond the city. If I go…will you come with me?" he asked. Quorra's answer was her lips softly pressed against his, and her hands squeezing in response.

**·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Zuse had felt wetness, but something was hard under his chest, something solid. He slowly groaned and opened his eyes…he'd felt like he'd slammed his chest against a wall, all the breath was taken out of his body. He lifted himself up on his arms, seeing seawater coating his hands. He had fallen into the sea, he remembered. Icy cold, digital sea where nothing was matter, and it flowed all around him but for an instant after the cat pushed him. Then he had been falling through open air, then hit the ground. He shook his head, water flecking off into the small tidal pools around him. It was a place devoid of life, made of jagged black rock. He shifted his hands and felt sand under his fingers.

No, not sand. He lifted a handful of the stuff and had to choke down a small gasp when he saw code flowing through his fingertips. Blocky, glassy code that might have been one of his patrons, or a piece of the lover Dillinger had so cruelly derezzed. The place was paved with the dead. He scrambled to his feet and looked around him in the soft, white, biodigital glow. Everywhere he looked glass littered the floor, the remnants of programs disintegrating as the system removed bad code. Dillinger had plucked him from a place like this.

He fixed his hair, which had gone from swept back and beautiful to stringy bits of white hair that hung over his eyes. He irritably pushed it back from his thin face and began to walk down the tunnel. He looked up curiously when he saw a drop separate from the tidal pools along the way and slowly travel upward to the ceiling in empty space. When he looked up, he saw a swirling, roiling mass of water that could have been the underside of a boiling sea. He knew he was looking at errors in the Grid, programs were never meant to look upon this area, thus when he saw the ceiling out of the corner of his vision when he turned a corner, it was calm as still water. But when he looked up again, it bubbled and roiled trying to make sense of his presence. He shuddered and moved to put his hands in his pockets, but his fingertips touched the black, bladed triangle and he jerked his hand away like he'd been burned by it.

He bit his lip. There was the matter of poisoning Sam Flynn. Would he even be able to pull the boy into his web? Sam had refused his advances before, but it had been a sort of game they played together. It was meant in no sort of malice. He rubbed his neck and continued. The drops flowing upward from the floor grew more frequent, until he was actively stepping around them. The code was piling up as he went deeper, gleaming piles of glassy code. When he first espied a dead program, half derezzed, his arms twisted up above his head as if clawing for the sky, he'd had to clap his hand to his mouth to shut down bile rising in his throat. Zuse was an entertainer, he was no man for plunging into the land of the dead.

The programs had become more and more numerous, in varying states of decay. Their eyes were wide, unblinking. Frozen in time. Zuse despaired of ever finding an iso, one with milk-pale skin like his own and the coveted biodigital code that Dillinger had sent him hunting for. The piles of the dead grew so deep soon he was heaving aside fistfuls of the glass shards, fighting down disgust as line over line of code flung away and shattered into pieces, mere numbers now. He sat down on the stones, disgusted. How did he expect to find such code? He had no idea what he was looking for! He'd never seen a piece of his own code before, it was somewhere between the soft flesh the Users boasted and the blocky, glasslike code the programs had. Something that met between. He took out the poisoned spike and turned it over in his fingers again, avoiding the razor edges. But, like the first time, his finger slit on the edge and he looked at the milky white blood welling in the cut. He sighed and flicked the blood away.

He didn't know when or where the drop had hit the ground, but when he looked back there was a white patch growing from the spot, growing ever wider. It grew stronger and stronger, until he had to scramble to his feet to get out of the way of it. The white reached milky, spidery fingers out and touched the piles of code, and a sharp ringing sound came from deep within the mounds. Zuse stared, fear touching his heart. What had he done?

He backed up, and felt his spine hit something, and a deep growl. He whipped around to see a figure staring down at him. The figure was clothed in black, with white bars of electricity striping up on either side of his chest, up the high collar on his neck, to the visor on a helm as black as the sea. There were no words, only the rumbling growl that seemed like some great steel cat was hidden in his chest.

"You're dead." Zuse whispered, and black gauntlets closed around his throat.

**·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Dillinger ran his hands down the cat's spine. The panther had returned timely, just as he'd asked. The program hadn't failed him yet, and he was quite proud of its programming. He smirked and settled back in the chair. The room around him was white, the furniture was silvery and in the manner of an old French mansion. The floor glowed softly, providing illumination. "The Elder Flynn certainly had good taste if nothing else." Dillinger smirked, putting his feet up on the glass dining table that hadn't borne so much as a smudge since its purveyor had died. The door had been set unlocked, the books gone. But the house still served a good purpose. Dillinger had taken over the house since Sam seemed too preoccupied to pay it any attention, and it was here the man was to await the boy.

Sam had spread the word that he wanted to meet the other User peacefully, and Dillinger had agreed. He still had every intention of killing Sam, but the programs also faithfully obeyed their new leader, and changing the mantle of leadership would not be a simple matter. But it went beyond the Grid. With Sam dead, Dillinger stood to sway the council to his way, and become CEO. From there, the Grid was the biggest gold mine anyone could ever own…and he planned on carving out a large piece of that million dollar pie. He grinned and looked down at the panther. "The father of my thousands." He purred gently, looking up when the door slid open.


	6. Flipping the Board

Zuse watched Tron pace, the program seeming confused and lost. He wasn't another iso like Zuse, but something else altogether. He was the first program ever to step foot on the Grid, and his only function was to protect it. But he'd been gone for nearly three rebooting cycles, and he was obviously confused as to where he was. When Tron had fallen into the sea, Sam had been on the track of getting rid of Clu, and the Grid had returned to peace. Zuse, to Tron's knowledge, had been dead.

"Hey uh…we going to stay here or go back up-" Zuse began, but Tron cut him off with a low, dangerous growl. Zuse sighed. "When the hell is Sam going to update you so you can speak…" he grumbled. Tron's programming, while strong, was old. He couldn't speak, the subroutine had probably suffered more damage than normal due to his age.

Tron growled again, pacing back and forth over a pile of his derezzed brethren.

"Listen." Zuse snapped. "I'm not going to sit down here dealing with _your_ existential crisis! I was sent here by Sam to find the other isos, he needs their help. There's another user going rogue on the Grid."

Tron cocked his head and looked at Zuse through the visor of his helmet. Come to think of it, Zuse had never seen the program without the full face helm, and it made it impossible to determine if the program was angry or not. By his frantic pacing and the way the program's arms were crossed, Tron was more confused than anything. "Sam. You remember him? Flynn? Son of the elder Flynn…the Programmer?" Zuse said.

Tron drew closer and knelt in front of Zuse, putting his face (or rather, visor) very close to Zuse's. The iso leaned back in the pile of derezzed pieces. "Uh…we're not going to go through the choking episode again are we?" Zuse said nervously, pulling a small smile. Tron snorted loudly and gestured with a gloved hand.

"You….want me to…" Zuse trailed off. Tron snarled sharply and smashed the pile of glass next to Zuse into powder.

"Users! Give me a damn break here, you can't talk…you've got to find some way to tell me." Zuse said defensively, putting his palms up. Tron growled, looking around the area until he spied the glass dust. He gathered a pile in front of them and began to draw with a finger.

'Where am I?'

Tron looked up at Zuse.

"You're under the Sea of Simulation. In the place where the computer breaks down code to reuse it." Zuse explained. Tron snorted in surprise and wiped out the question, writing frantically.

'How was I brought back?'

"I guess…my blood." Zuse held out the hand he'd cut himself on, letting Tron see the small cut the poisoned spike had made. "I cut myself, and a drop of my blood fell on the ground, the next thing I knew you were trying to strangle me."

'You are an iso.'

"I hadn't noticed, captain obvious. But…" Zuse clenched his hand and looked at the cut again. "…if our blood has that much power, to resurrect code…" he started when Tron grabbed his knee and pointed at the writing. He'd written something new.

'The Programmer created the Grid. Your kind came from the Grid but not from him. You are an anomaly.' Tron wrote.

"Ghosts in the system." Zuse mumbled. "Your Programmer was going on about it when he found us in the Outlands…I was a trader then. Hawking booze to nomads instead of owning the End of Line club." He stood up, dusting bits of code from his coat. He could not let Dillinger find out that his blood had the power to bring dead programming back. "I need to find the other isos." He told Tron.

Tron wiped out his words with a clean sweep of his hand and gestured around them.

'The water.' He wrote.

Zuse stared, then glanced at the area around them. Small drops traveled to the ceiling, where the roiling sea hissed and bubbled powerfully. He suddenly felt sick. Those lines of code, that liquid, was all that was left of his people. If he stared long enough at the water, he could start seeing code, complicated, twisted lines that resembled DNA but were so much more. "I'm going to be sick…" he scrambled up and away from the water. "The Sea of Simulation…is made up of dead isos?" he demanded of Tron.

The defender of the Grid nodded. 'We need to get out. Before next cycle.' Tron wrote.

"Why?" Zuse asked. "What happens when the next cycle comes?"

'We deresolution.' Tron wrote, then rose to his feet. He grabbed Zuse's wrist before the iso could protest. Tron's hand was strong and large, it closed around the entirety of Zuse's slender, milky wrist. Zuse smirked over at the program.

"Pretty strong aren't you?" he said, and received a purr in response that sounded almost….

…approving?

**·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"I never wanted to be back here." Quorra said quietly, looking over at Sam. Sam sighed and looked over at her, then began to walk down the bridge from the Portal. To his surprise, his light cycle was still laying gently against a pylon that held up the bridge. Quorra followed him, watching him take ahold of the cycle and swinging a leg over it. He started and almost fell over when the bike made a noise and the image of a program Sam didn't recognize shimmered into view.

'The User will meet you at the home of the Programmer, out beyond the Grid.' The hologram said. 'He welcomes you and your…iso.' The hologram disappeared and the bike lay silent.

"Christ…" Sam swore.

Quorra stared. "He's in…he's in your father's house! He can't do that!" she protested, wounded. Sam narrowed his eyes and started the bike, zooming out into the Outlands. Now he was angry. It was one thing for this other User to fuck with him, sending large cats after him and turning off the Portal at will…it was quite another to just take over his Father's house.

He gritted his teeth and urged the light cycle faster across the brown rocks of the Outlands. "He's going to fucking pay for that, Quorra, I swear to you." He snarled. He felt her rest her cheek against his back, her short bobbed hair flying in the digital wind.

She bit her lip, she was thinking. "Don't. He's trying to make you angry, it makes you reckless." She pointed out to him, raising her voice above the wind. "We have to go in there calm, or not at all."

Sam nodded curtly. She was right, as usual, but that didn't change his feelings on the matter. This other User was an invader, trampling upon his father's memory. In his house, where his father used to knock on the sky…he tightened his hands on the handlebars. Quorra was telling him not to be angry, but all he wanted to do was strangle whatever fat nerd had managed to break into the Grid.

He slammed on the brakes when he saw the elegant white house arise from the rocks, neatly spinning the bike into a parking position. He leaned the bike against a rock furiously. Quorra recognized his mood, and tried to put her hand on his shoulder. Sam shook it off, his teeth clenched as he marched up the pathway to his father's old home. Quorra sighed and followed. She could not get him calm, but she could be there for him.

She entered the house that she had been hiding in for cycles after Clu had destroyed her people. She loved Sam's father, she always had considered them brother and sister, but the house now had a chill to it. The calm, zen atmosphere had dissipated. The white wasn't soft and warm. It was cold, clinical. The color of frost, of hatred. She shivered unconsciously and followed Sam into the living room. Frozen laughter greeted them.

"Welcome to my humble abode, Sam Flynn." Dillinger smiled and leaned back in the chair. The panther rose to its feet, growling at Sam and Quorra. "And you brought the iso. Excellent."

"She's not an object." Sam snapped out the words so quickly, almost before Dillinger had finished closing his mouth. "And I should have had you kicked off the board before you finished unpacking your suitcase, Dillinger."

Dillinger laughed. "I invited you here to inform you, Sam Flynn, that this little pet project of your father's is no longer yours to facilitate." He smiled thinly. "The Portal has closed behind you and the iso, and my men are dismantling the Portal as we speak. You lost, Sam. So I'm giving you a chance to surrender gracefully before I leave you here in this digital wasteland to see all your father's work come under my reign."

"Never." Sam spat, his fists balled so tight Quorra could see his neck muscles bulging. "I'll see you in hell before that happens."

"I could program you there if you liked. See, while you were messing around with Zuse's club and moping over the death of your father, I was learning. I talked to Zuse, I talked with the programs. You've spent a lot of time here but you've not bothered to change anything. I have." He snapped his fingers and the panther squealed and fell to the floor. "I'll have to ask you to leave my house, Sam. I'll tell Allen I'm sorry for his loss. Those motorcycles of yours can be so dangerous on the highway."

Quorra and Sam watched in horror as the panther rose, twice the size it was, its head bulging and rearranging itself. The smooth metal strip that served for its teeth twisted and serrated, becoming thick fangs and incisors that would shear through flesh like a sword through lard. Its eyes had become large, paws thicker and tipped with claws, haunches twice as muscular. "And leave the iso." Dillinger added dismissively, getting up and going to the window.

"Fuck you." Sam snarled, though he barely had time to dodge the fanged mouth leaping for him. The cat skidded into his father's dining table and shattered it, sending deresolutioned pixels scattering across the floor. Sam scrambled for the exit, for his bike where he knew he could outrun the cat. Quorra grabbed a decorative candelabra and belted the cat across the face. "Run!" she shouted at Sam.

Sam shook his head and looked around the room for a weapon. "Sam, go!" Quorra shouted. The cat shook its head and leapt for him again, but Quorra was quicker. She jumped on its back and wrapped her arm around its neck. The weight sent the cat head first to the floor, struggling to get out of the iso's grasp as Quorra wrapped her thighs around its hips and pinned its legs back. For a fleeting moment, Sam remembered a book on wrestling somewhere in his house.

"SAM!" Quorra screamed. "I can't hold it! Go!"

Sam didn't have to look long to know she was right. The cat was snapping wildly to get some part of her anatomy between its teeth, coming dangerously close to her side and shoulder every time.

With the cat in between her and Sam, he had no choice.

He slammed open the door, put his leg over his bike, and ran.

**·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Allen could only stare as he got out of his car and shut the door, his face frozen as the sign reading 'Flynn's Arcade' crashed down to the pavement. Work crews were inside, tearing the place apart. Throwing arcade machines older than Sam was crudely out onto the pavement. Allen ran to one of them like it was a wounded companion, staring at the shattered screen and the bent controls. What was happening? Was this Sam's doing? He rushed inside, dodging a workman throwing old drywall out onto the street.

"What are you doing? This building is owned by Sam Flynn, and he'd never ask for its destruction! Stop!" Allen shouted helplessly at the workers over the noise of a rotary saw. His heart caught in his throat when he saw where the Tron machine had been. The game itself lay on its side, the screen flickering, and men were carefully bringing up pieces of the portal console through the gaping mouth of the once-secret door.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" Allen felt like he was watching some rabid dog tear open a newborn kitten. The place was hardly recognizeable. Allen walked, as if in a dream, upstairs to the old office where a man stood surveying the destruction of his best friend's love child. The foreman looked surprised to see him, and Allen was equally shocked to see that the company logo was on his jacket.

"What the hell is going on here?" Allen snarled, feeling anger replace the horror.

"Got a letter in this morning says that the company's bought the building." The foreman grunted. "Everything's gotta go."

"Who signed this order?" Allen demanded. The foreman sighed and turned to a desk, pushing aside several papers until he found the one he was looking for. He handed it to Allen, who clutched the paper and nearly ripped it in two when he saw the signature on the bottom.

Sam Flynn, CEO, ENCOM Industries.

**·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**


	7. On the Run

Zuse rubbed his wrist when Tron finally released him. He'd been watching the program tug him down passageways so twisted even he couldn't keep track of all of them. He was tired, and Tron seemed to sense his exhaustion. "Nice of you to stop." Zuse mumbled, sitting down on a pile of pixels and running his fingers through his hair. Tron examined him, standing stock still as a statue. "Listen, I need some rest. How long until the next cycle?" the iso asked his growling companion.

Tron knelt and arranged pieces of pixels into numbers.

"Ten hours by standard clock. And how long until we get to the exit?" Zuse asked, waiting patiently for Tron to reassemble the numbers. "Two hours. That's enough for a good long cat nap, thank you very much. We isos DO need to sleep and reboot, same as the Grid does." He kicked around a pile of the derezzed pieces irritably, attempting to make something he could sleep on. It didn't even compare to his lovely, soft, satiny bed…he sighed wistfully. "You know, I programmed a bed. Giant one, with big fluffy pillows and sheets so soft they begged you on their knees to fuck on them." Zuse said sadly. "I couldn't do a thing with this pile of code in four hours, let alone ten."

He knew time had little bearing in the Grid, but one could revert to the standard clock and measure that way…if you had enough time to count the seconds, add them up to minutes then hours. One needed to measure a second to define a second, and programs could do it effortlessly. Isos could relegate themselves or program a subroutine for the task, and Users seemed incapable of such patience. Zuse took off his thick white and gray coat, laying it down on top of the sharp little pixels. "Guess it will have to do." He settled down on top of his makeshift bed and curled up, closing his eyes.

He heard footsteps and saw Tron approaching the bed, the helm tilted downward to examine what Zuse was doing. Zuse smirked. "You know, you could take off that helm and give me another sort of relaxation. I'd be terribly ashamed if the first thing I resurrected turned out to be a hideous bore." He invited playfully.

Tron leaned down and Zuse instinctively rolled on his back, the soft purrs coming from Tron enough to make the hairs on his neck rise. He parted his legs and felt his breathing pick up. Tron was stronger than any weak little program he'd had between his legs, he could smell raw strength and power coming off of his coding in droves. It made his loins burn and his hips rise slightly. He wanted to wrap his legs around the strong hips he'd been eyeing. "Come here. I'm kinky, but the helm's not doing it for me." He whispered, and lifted his long-fingered white hands to Tron's head. He brushed the glassy surface, sliding his hands down beneath the rim.

The defensive program whipped his head so quickly out of range that Zuse couldn't help feeling a bit insulted. Tron stared at him a moment, then stalked off to keep watch at the tunnel entrance, leaving Zuse aroused and confused on his makeshift bed. Glaring, the iso turned on his side and closed his eyes. "Prude." He grunted at Tron.

**·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Quorra glared daggers at Dillinger from her cage. He'd programmed her into a cage with bars that felt white-hot to her touch, and hadn't given her much room to do anything other than sit with her knees up. The panther, now back to its original form, stared at her silently. Dillinger did the same from his chair, smiling wordlessly as he stroked his fingers over the back of the chair. "Now I have the last two isos in existence…right under my roof." Dillinger purred. "Tell me about your people. I really haven't gotten much out of Zuse, he's more useful doing my tasks than feeding me information. He tends to tell me what I want to hear."

Quorra looked at him nervously. She could have damned herself for a fool. When she was busy with the cat, she'd almost completely forgotten about the User, and he'd gotten the better of her. She swallowed and found she couldn't meet his eyes. "Why do you want to know about us?" she asked coldly. Kevin Flynn, when he had rescued her from Clu, had asked a similar question…but his questions had been asked over dinner after she'd recovered, and not staring at her like she was some zoo animal in a cage.

"As the new master of the Grid, isn't that for me to determine?" Edward asked, leaning forward on his knees to look her in the eyes. "Call it curiosity for now." He smiled thinly.

The iso frowned. "We came from the Grid. I don't know how we got there…it seems like we'd always been there. We were an advanced civilization once, we established the city out here in the wilderness, and it was there we met the Programmer. He…understood us. I knew Zuse then, he was just a trader in a run-down store. I was just a girl. When Clu went mad and destroyed half of the Grid, and our people with it, Kevin took me from my home as my parents died. Zuse we found in the ruins." Quorra said.

Dillinger nodded. "So the Programmer was some saint to you and Zuse, hm? The one who saved you from the rogue program?" he chuckled. "He never learned your powers. You are a unique anomaly, and I plan to figure out every little niche of what you can do. You're the only thing purely borne of the Grid, with no human influence, yet you have your own unique biology. Since I can't get rid of Zuse, he is useful with his connections, I only have you to experiment with."

Quorra bristled. "I'm not some experiment!" she snarled.

"Of course not." Dillinger said dismissively. "But with your blood, I might be able to program something to give me permanent control of the Grid forever. No one else has what I have. Two isos, a male and female. A pair of the most valuable technological wonders the world has ever seen…the digital become flesh, able to step outside the Grid. Forget the computers, I could make billions off of your parts alone."

The slow, nasty grin that spread across his face was something that made Quorra's stomach twist.

**·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Sam rested his forehead against a sandy colored rock. He felt rain pelting his back and legs, flowing down his face and blurring his vision. It was raining in the Grid, and he didn't have the energy to stop it. How could he have been so foolish? Here he was, lost out in the wastes, with Quorra captured by Dillinger. The man was probably out for his head! The only chance he would get to go back to his own world was to follow Allen's advice and find Tron. But how, the defender of the Grid had been derezzed when he fell into the Sea of Simulation.

But he had to try.

For Quorra, he had to get her back. Would going back to Zuse help? The man seemed to be the only creature who knew what was going on in the Grid at all times. Zuse was tapped in, he knew all the programs from the subroutines to the major processing units to the half-resolutioned viruses that were regularly hunted down by protection programs. But would Zuse speak to him or only hit on him and give him half-answers? Would it help if he knew Quorra was captured? Sam ran a hand down his face, wiping water from his eyes and sitting up on the bike.

Then there was Dillinger to consider. He had locked Sam in the Grid, but the man had to get out sometime if he wanted to continue his evil plotting in the real world. At least he knew Dillinger's aims now. He wanted the Grid, he wanted the isos, he wanted the company. He had two of them, and would soon have a third. But Allen wouldn't stand by and let this happen, not his CFO?

Sam swore loudly, and looked out across the Outlands. He stopped dead and ducked down behind a rocky outcropping when his eyes fell upon something he'd never seen in the Grid before. Three of Dillinger's panthers, their eyes alight and sweeping the landscape, illuminating the digital darkness as they prowled. "Shit." Sam muttered. Not only was he stuck here, but he was hunted as well. Dillinger wasn't so content to just let him run, it seemed.

He slowly got back on the bike, praying it wouldn't make too much noise grinding in the dirt. He sped off as quickly as he possibly could, hearing a surprised roar behind him but not daring to look back. Zuse would know what to do. Dillinger said he had learned from him. It was time he did the same.


End file.
